Am I the only man that is focused mainly on emotional aspect

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I was assuming I did. But then maybe for others its not as obvious that I talk about emotions when I do. At some point I asked one of my ex-s (back from 2010), whom I pushed away partly by being argumentative, the following question: "what if, back at the day, I were to tell you that the reason I argue so much is that my feelings are hurt". She said "yes this would have helped". So then I asked her "but wasn't it self evident that my feelings were hurt from the very fact that I was so argumentative" she said "not to me" so then I said "so why would I be arguing so much if my feelings aren't hurt". She couldn't answer this question.

Or here is another example. I had an officemate two years ago (she moved away last year to a different state) and I kept complaining to her about my reputation. So she actually mentioned to some other officemate (who came to my office a year after her and also is no longer her) that I don't like to talk much and the only thing I ever talk about is my reputation. But then when I heard it from him, I came back to her and told her that actually I do want to socialize. She said she didn't know it. So I said "but wasn't it obvious from the fact that I talk about my reputation that I want to socialize". She said it wasn't. She believed me that I want to socialize now that I told her -- but the point is that, until I told her that, she didn't know that was the case -- even though I *thought* it was self evident from my reputation questions.

So could it be that with the therapist its the same thing? I *think* I talk about my emotions all the time, but on his end it doesn't sound that way?

Or perhaps its not even limited to communicating emotions, but rather to communication in general. Like for example I have trouble getting my physics papers published because the referees think I am talking about a different topic from the one I actually talk about -- so they end up "disagreeing" with me, when actually they are disagreeing with something I never said (and I would have disagreed with someone else making that statement too) since they totally misread what it is that I said. And, at the same time, they totally miss what it is I "am" saying, or why.

I guess, in the physics case, its partly due to the fact that I pose brand new questions while others are trying to work on the questions that are already being worked on. So maybe the task of conveying a new idea is something nobody else has to do since their ideas aren't really "new". Could something similar be happening socially? Well, not quite: I mean feeling of loneliness isn't something that I just discovered, everyone feels that. I mean, why can't NT-s relate to my concern by extrapolating from the situation where someone feels ostracized for being fat (well I am not fat but the concept is similar)? So they basically "assume" they can't relate to my situation, which stops them from trying, and makes it into self fulfilling prophecy.



My facial expressions simply don't match social context. It can go both ways. If I think of something funny that has nothing to do with anything the person talks to me about, I might start giggling at whatever thought I am thinking. On the other hand, if I "don't" have one of those thoughts, then I don't smile even when I should -- or at least thats what people tell me that I hardly ever smile.



I don't usually do this, except for extremely rare occasions. Like one such occasion was back in 2001 when I needed to find housing really urgently and, in fact, me and my mom were looking for housing together. So my mom remembers how I was extremely pleasant to the guy that became my landlord. I guess I never looked for housing before, so I didn't know that there is no competition and its all first come first served unless I do something extremely rude -- or maybe it was just an anxiety due to the fact that I had to find a house literally for tomorrow. In any case, even nowdays my mom brings back that really old 2001 conversation as an example of how she likes me to act -- but no, she never mentioned any other examples since, like I said, these are few and far between.

But maybe its not exactly what you talk about since it sounds like you are referring to mimicking, but back in 2001 I wasn't mimicking anything, I was simply trying to be the best version of myself possible.



Yeah that makes sense. I don't know about you but, at least in my case, if I am "told" what to feel I would most likely reject it since obviously I know myself better than the other person; but if the other person works with me on what I do think or feel then that is something I would find a lot more useful.



But I thought you said you been to the hospital?



Well, I wouldn't say I have depression. Yes, I feel sad, but I don't think its enough to qualify me for official depression diagnosis. My only diagnosis is Asperger.

Anyway, can you specify what topic(s) are you disagreeing with the other gentleman on?



Yeah, I do that too. In fact thats the other way in which I push the girls away. They will judge me for the information I share but they don't realize that others might be just as bad in those aspects, they just won't say it until the time is right.



Wow, thats a lot. I never been hospitalized. In fact I never taken any medications either.



Are you saying you went to the hospital in order to be on welfare?



Are you saying you went to the hospital in order to "undo" the outpatient interventions you received?



Like what kind of stresses?



Its kinds ironic: to me the 1990s were the years of my being blissfully unaware of social problems. I wouldn't want to go back to early 1990-s though, since back then I was bullied at school and controlled by my parents. But the late 1990-s, particularly 1997, were nice, I really wish to go back there.



Thats very similar to how I pushed the girls away. Usually it wasn't weeks-off but rather it was them not writing me as often as I would like, so I would call them out on it and say "did you become quiet because I said/did X, Y or Z that turned you off" and then start arguments about it. And in my case it also started at the specific event in my life -- but no, it wasn't at the childhood, it happened in 2001.

Its interesting you are saying its separate from Asperger. In my case I always assume its part of Asperger. Even though it started from when I was 21 and I had Asperger from birth, I still say it is due to Asperger since Asperger is the whole context of it. I mean yes I had Asperger from birth, but it manifested itself differently at different points of my life, so starting from the age of 21 it started to manifest itself this particular way.

Here is how it relates to Asperger.

1. Asperger has to do with problems with social interactions. And what I just described relates to social interaction problems in two ways:

a) I know for a fact that sometimes my social interaction problems push people away. What I don't know is whether or not it was the case that particular time. But since it happens sometimes, I have a legitimate reason to be wondering whether or not it was one of those times. And since people are too polite to say "hey you did this or that wrong" and, instead, they would just distance away -- then, clearly, the girl distancing away is something to be concerned about.

b) Since part of the problems with social interactions is difficulty interpreting signals coming from others, I might misinterpret the girl being simply tired with her being upset with me or losing interest.

2. Asperger has to do with overfocusing. And, in the behavior above, I am overfocussing on various signals the girl sends to me, as well as what I might have done to create those signals.



Were you abused by your parents, or by whom?

SORRY IT DOESN"T LIKE LONG POSTS, SO I WILL PASTE THE SECOND HALF OF MY REPLY INTO THE NEXT POST

OKAY HERE IS THE SECOND HALF OF MY REPLY

Well, I wouldn't say I bought into that stereotype for one simple reason: like I mentioned, I only learned about my diagnosis in 1997, but I was assuming I don't have a need to socialize throughout all of my school years. I guess it had to do with the fact that I was bullied a lot, so I wanted to avoid the bullies. And the way I reacted to bullying was that I simply viewed them as a physical threat and didn't really care as to what they think of me as long as they leave me alone. But then again, bullying stopped in 1994. The reason I was assuming I didn't have a need to socialize between 1994 and 1997 is simply that I couldn't really relate to what kids were doing. That, plus also my dad taught me calculus in 1992 and I was really proud I knew it at the age of 12, so I felt like this made me superior to others and socializing is just a way to waste time that could have been used to studying.

And no, that had nothing to do with buying into Asperger stereotype either -- like I said, I didn't know I had it up until 1997, in fact, I didn't even know that word existed up until that time. I remember when I first learned it in 1997, I confused the word "autistic" with the word "artistic" and I kept getting the word Asperger wrong as I kept trying to repeat it to myself. So my idea of myself as someone super smart who has no need to socialize couldn't have possibly been related to those words I didn't even know.

Just so that you know, I was pretty stubborn back then, so I was quite unlikely to buy into something simply because someone said so. As a matter of fact, I remember questioning my diagnosis because my mom's idea of it was someone who does have all those emotions and needs to withdraw in order to feel "safe". So I was like "what is my mom talking about; doesn't she realize that I don't even care about any of the things she assumes hurt or scare me? I just want to do my math!" But my therapist's version of it was different -- my therapist told me that people with Asperger don't care about social things -- and then I was like "yes that sounds about right". And then there were a bunch of other things that made me question my diagnosis as well. Like when I read how people with Asperger want to take the same rout to school every day I was like "wait a second, I don't do that stuff, so maybe I don't really have it". But the point about not needing to socialize was the one thing I "didn't" question -- and, in fact, I wondered for a while if Schizoid Personality Disorder is better diagnosis for me, since it described "not caring" in the way more similar to what I seemed to experienced.

In any case, I think what might have actually happened is that one can't "like" something one never experienced. So since I never experienced socializing, I "thought" I didn't like it. In 1997 I experienced it during a semester I was in cross country team, and then I was looking back to that semester. But I guess I didn't connect the dots together so I didn't realize that what I was missing was socializing. I still thought I didn't need to socialize but 1997 was really super-nice "just because". Then, in 2001, I was participating in mailing list for Asperger -- not because I wanted to socialize, mind you, but rather because I wanted to do some case studies and compare the Asperger symptoms other people have to the ones I have. I was kicked out of that list due to someone accusing me of racism, and then I was missing people on that mailing list and obsessing about it. In other words, *after* I was kicked out, I no longer saw it as a case study but instead I *became* attached to it emotionally. Once again, I didn't connect the dots together and I thought it was "just" that list -- so I kept trying to search out other autism-related sites hoping to run into people on that list -- unsuccessfully. Then, few months later, I finally asked myself the following question: "could it be that its not mailing list that I am missing but rather I am missing socialization in general, and mailing list is simply the only time I got to experience it? In this case maybe I don't need to keep searching out the members of that list; maybe I can just join a local social group, and then, hopefully, the whole mailing list issue will become moot". Now, it just happened that -- few years *before* that whole mailing list have happened -- my mom was pushing an idea of my joining Jewish club on campus -- which I was always dismissing since I viewed it as a distraction from my studies. So then, in 2001, after that mailing list incident, I decided to go ahead and join the Jewish club my mom kept wanting me to join, thinking once I join it they will immediately befriend me and I will forget about that list. Well, it didn't happen this way. What happened was quite the opposite. They ostracized me, and I became even more hurt. Yes, I forgot about the mailing list -- but now I was obsessed about Jewish club. So then I decided I should join dating sites in order to forget about the Jewish club. And when I joined the dating sites then I saw how nobody responds to my messages and I got upset about that too. So that snowballed from there.



Yeah exactly!



Yeah I agree with you. In fact, during my second long term relationship, that girl was sick and couldn't walk for a couple of months and I was taking care of her, and this is what drew us really close to each other. Yet, at the same time, I admit that in most other situations I am always after my own needs. But that doesn't mean I am selfish, it simply means that its impossible to care about someone whom I am not even friends with -- I am sure NTs would agree! The only difference between me and NT-s is that in my case I have far fewer friends -- and usually I have none at all. So, just like NTs, I only care about friends or girlfriends. But, unlike NT-s, I don't have any friends. Thats why I am selfish. But NT-s falsely assume I am selfish because thats the way I always am, which is not true.

I mean, I was even asked by some girls on the dating site "if we were to date, would you be able to express emotions". Well, like I said, I did with my ex-s didn't I. But I don't express emotions in day to day life: why would I, if people don't even talk to me?!



The possibility of "b that has led to a" is what I was dwelling upon -- and thats one of the biggest reasons I kept refusing to follow the advice a. I guess I am not sure how you would interpret "b leading to a" but my own interpretation is like this:

"if others approach me that shows they truly care about me, if I approach them it doesn't show that, so the interaction where I approach them is much less meaningful than the one where they approach me; but, if so, then I should wait for them to approach me in order not to miss out on that, more meaningful version of interaction"

Well, I guess the above is an understatement of what I am trying to convey. Here is the stronger version of what I feel:

"Me having to approach them is a punishment for my doing all those other thigns wrong; I don't want to take that punishment, so I don't want to approach them. Besides, a social interaction that started from the punishment won't meet my needs of emotional validation anyway".

Don't get me wrong. There are other reasons why I don't want to approach. Not the least of them is that I don't know how to. So even if I were to forget the whole entire business about punishment or validation or what not, I simply don't know how to start regardless. But here is the thing. Its one thing to jump through the hoops if the reason for those hoops has nothing to do with me, and its quite a different reason to jump through the hoops if they were placed specifically because of me. Doing the latter would make me feel like a fool since I would be pretending like "oh people do want to socialize with me they just happened to have all those hoops" without realizing the obvious thing that "maybe the hoops are there because they don't want to socialize and are too polite to outright tell me that".



Yeah, I am sure they do that too, and it pisses me off.



Sometimes I wonder whether it has anything to do with the misconception that people with Asperger don't want to socialize. Could this be part of the reason people didn't ostracize me in the late 90-s: Asperger was unheard of back then, so they didn't label me? Well, my therapist did, but when I told others I have Asperger, the most common reaction was "whats that" and the second most common reaction was "you don't look autistic to me". On the other hand, right now everyone knows that I have it and they all know what it is. Could this be the reason they used to talk to me before and don't talk to me now?



Well, in my case, I see on a hindsight how I could have easily avoided certain things I said and did. Thats precisely why when girls break up with me I keep begging them for second chances, since I feel it is so super easy not to do those things again, yet the girls don't believe me. Which again brings me to the question whether or not Asperger awarenness is what hinders me. If girls didn't know I have Asperger, would they be more willing to believe me when I say I will change?



Then why can't you do it now? Better late then never.



That sounds like a bit of self deception. You are trying to "trick yourself" into complying with your decision to stay single for the rest of your life by "lying to yourself" that this attitude will be more attractive to women. Well, how are you going to attract women if you made up your mind not to?

I realize that desperation isn't attractive, but isn't there some intermediate option, like having a goal of having a woman without being desperate about that goal?




So you said you went from a low to a high just between two neighboring sentences? That sounds interesting.



I am in a similar predicament although not as bad: I am 39. But that only makes me more despearate to have a girlfriend, since I can't postpone it to future. In fact I feel like I missed out on best part of my life so I want to make up for it, which is more like running against the clock.

Yes: with the therapist, it could be that same thing; that is one explanation which would fit the facts as reported by you. Maybe a question you could raise with the therapist?Yes, this rings a bell. Many of my intended jokes are missed, and many of my intended serious observations are taken as obscure, off-the-wall humour. I think the word for my problem here would be "oblique." My impression is people find my remarks too oblique to follow properly.

My last girlfriend once complained to me: "Practically everything you say is about three things all at once! It's so hard to keep up! I have to concentrate really hard!" I don't think a lot of people really concentrate, really look at what's being said. I think they exist on a sloppy, minimum-effort code comprised of clichés and other ritual remarks, so that they scarcely have to put any effort into conversation at all nor ever really do much actual thinking.

That would be one reason why "Wrong Planet" is so apt a name for an A.S.D. forum, no?Yup. Reckon it could. Again, people don't expect to have to do a whole lot of concentrating and thinking. Television doesn't help, reducing even intelligent adults' attention-span to that of a hyperactive puppy on mephedrone.

And people shy away from "new". It's too much like hard work.Again, maybe the extrapolation required is simply too much like hard work for most NTs?I believe I may have visited a somewhat similar resort, and come home with an almost identical tee shirt.

(Oops, unintentional example of obliqueness there! I'll leave it in, though.)Well, one way or another, it sounds as though this is a "social skill" which you have to exercise consciously, and I would identify with that. The good news it's evident you can do it, when you remember to try; and from this we may infer you could even improve upon it, which is promising, no?Well, it saved my life! I may, by any objective standard, be a complete mess now, but my day-to-day existence is a very great deal less tortured and less unbearable than it once was. So you could express that point to your therapist, maybe, or else think about finding a therapist who is more "into" that kind of thing.

You appear unafraid to think about yourself, and you appear to possess the kind of ratiocinating mind that could derive a lot from psychotherapy, with the right practitioner of course: you'd spend the whole week (or fortnight, or month) between appointments thinking about what was said in the last appointment; my psychotherapist used to seem pleased when I'd done that. She once said to me something like: "I enjoy working with you, because you work so hard."

This was incomprehensible to me, at the time. In retrospect I think she meant she welcomed the fact I went away and really endeavoured to process and digest what had been said in the session. Maybe NTs don't do that?

Maybe deriving life-changing benefit from deep psychotherapy could even be an "Aspie Superpower"?!I meant I fought off last week's devastating bout of depression, all by myself without wasting my doctor's time or begging for help from the local Mental Health Department. Psychotherapy taught me how to do that. It took a lot of effort and I did drink a lot along the way, but I'm pretty proud of having got through that week singlehanded.Well, my immediate answer to your specific question, as to your emotions maybe being hidden both from your therapist and from everyone else, was Yes; whereas rdos thought it "highly unlikely". However, somehow both rdos and I have fallen into the trap of assuming you were depressed. If we're both wrong about that, I think we'll both be glad for you!No, and not quite!

Our welfare system is, rightly or wrongly, set up to discourage people from availing themselves of it, and to make it as challenging as possible to actually qualify for aid. Don't let's even get into the politics of that here! But you can perhaps imagine that if someone has waited until he's absolutely run out of money before attempting to make a claim, and if he can't pay his rent or buy food or heat his house, and he happens alas to be dangerously prone to anxiety and depression and has a history of suicidality, then a welfare system as adversarial as this will inevitably trigger severe anxiety and suicidal depression, in the case of such a person. In England, currently, if your doctor tells you you're seriously ill and must not attempt to work, the authorities ignore his opinion, and your level of fitness is assessed remotely, by bureaucrats who know nothing of your case history.

So, the so-called "welfare" system reduced me to a nervous wreck and triggered several suicide attempts, in the years 2011-2015, i.e. it did very little for my actual welfare!

Meanwhile, had my so-called Community Psychiatric Nurse, Support Worker, and others who were supposed to be "supporting" me, noticed and realized the spiralling deterioration of my mental state, and remembered my past history, then they could and should have stepped in way before I sunk so low. But they didn't. So, it wasn't about "undoing" the interventions I received, it was about picking up the pieces left by interventions I'd failed to receive.

This is why I am, in general, pretty scathing about mental health workers.See above!Yes, you are correct: it could actually be more connected with Asperger's than I was supposing in my own case.

This kind of thinking is an example of how you could be good at participating in psychotherapy!No comment. Not something it's good for me to even think about. I trust you will understand this.I was once diagnosed with Schizoaffective Disorder, and on another occasion query Schizoid Personality. The mental health profession is not yet fully across Asperger's!

Not every person with Asperger's displays every sign of Asperger's. Hence the saying: "When you've met one person with Asperger's, you've met—one person with Asperger's!"Interesting. There is something in this. On the other hand, it's possible your own self-consciousness about having Asperger's has become an albatross tround your neck: it's good to realize you have it, but not always good to obsess over it!

Out of time, for now, alas. Will endeavour to reply to remainder later, if possible.

By no means necessarily! Altho' it's true that Asperger's is noted for its inflexibility, I think women dumping men and the men insisting they can change and the women retorting that they won't is a daily occurrence, in the NT population.Some of those opportunities will not come round again. Both of the women I possibly, hypothetically, could or should have stayed with forever have since (naturally) become attached elsewhere. I don't mean, incidentally, that I had ambitions to be a bigamist! One or the other, not both, obviously. Meanwhile, for reasons of long-term mental illness and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, plus my original peer group having married and scattered to the four winds, my social circle is very very much diminished since even ten years ago, and also living on welfare my opportunities for socializing are naturally circumscribed (and I'm not saying welfare payments ought to include a dating increment, or a taxi allowance for coming back from the pub after a few drinks when you can't drive yourself, but money is undeniably one handy social lubricant which I alas no longer possess).It would take more time & energy than I have at my disposal right now to deconstruct & refute your summary of my position! I have said before, I am kind of ambivalent about relationships these days. Catch me on a different day, you'll likely get a different view of relationships from me. Some days I wish pansexuality had been "a thing" in my youth and I regret I never tried sleeping with another man. Other days I think the whole idea of sex is revolting anyway. Some days I get maudlin and lonely. Other days I cherish the fact I am not trapped in the claustrophobic and constricting commitment that a relationship inevitably represents. So you may as well give up trying to pin down my feelings here, because they are subject to wide variation!

If the right person somehow turned up, I'd jump at her or him like a shot (probably her, but after 30 or more years of occasional crushes on certain very special males, let's face up to the fact I'm either bisexual or pansexual, or else demiromantic, or some such thing). But I'm prepared to recognize it may never happen. These days, making sure I have enough coal and enough clean socks occupies more of my conscious thought!Welcome to the wonderful world of mental illness!

Aside from Asperger's, at various times I have variously been diagnosed with (from memory):
query Schizophrenia (school doctor);
dysthymic depression (hospital psychiatrist);
common-or-garden depression (home G.P.);
severe bipolar depression (consultant psychiatrist, following referral by university psychotherapist);
common-or-garden depression again (hospital psychiatrist);
query Schizoaffective Disorder (university doctor);
various personality disorders, including Borderline Personality Disorder which is now, I gather known as Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder (various psychiatrists 2011-2017).

In addition to this, Asperger's itself can be accompanied by "weak self-concept" and fluctuations in mood.

So, although it is clear not all of these other-than-Asperger's diagnoses can be correct, evidently it would be unrealistic to expect much from me in the way of consistency or stability from day to day, or even hour to hour! But again, thanks to psychotherapy I manage my instability without medication & without bothering anyone (apart from maybe Wrong Planet members, ha ha).Well, again, in one sense I feel more serene than you about this, because one of the few things I have going for me is my lack of desperation: desire or wistfulness, yes sometimes, but actual desperation, no, not any more. But I do remember the feeling you describe. And I think there are enough A.S.D. sufferers to be found, across the whole "Love & Dating" section, to indicate this may be a common A.S.D. problem.

Out of time & energy for now, too much thinking about stuff like this is bad for me!

Best wishes.

I have been musing on this a little further. I haven't made a decision to remain single: there is still quite a big part of me that would love to be in a relationship (after all, evolution has programmed us that way, or else, if you prefer, G-d wants us to want that: the effect is the same anyway!); but I have made a decision not to plunge myself into bleak despair if a relationship doesn't seem to be happening or on the horizon, and I have also made a decision to recognize that because of my Asperger's and my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and my personal circumstances, a relationship is less likely for me than it would be for a normal 46-year-old male with a Neurotypical brain and slightly better health and a little more money. I haven't made up my mind not to attract women; I've made up my mind to accept that I'm not awfully good at it, and am not currently well-placed to do it, and may never achieve it again now.

So your use of terms such as "self-deception" and "tricking oneself" and "lying to oneself" is very interesting. On the one hand I would dispute that there is actual deception or trickery or lying here. On the other hand, there is no doubt I have gone inside my head and tinkered with the settings: this is what psychotherapy taught me to do, and this is how I manage to pull off the high-wire act of living without any mental health medication or support.

So I think perhaps I am at that place you recommend: having a woman (or having someone...) still kind of is a goal, but it isn't a goal I'm desperate about.

It strikes me that some women might be intrigued and impressed by your willingness to go right down deep into stuff! But there are an awful lot of people who simply prefer not to think this deeply or in this much detail: it seems to freak them out, or else it's too much like hard work, or indeed both of those things!

You are very right about that. Been down that road myself, and so I really want to avoid doing that again. I think that is part of the reason why I'm fine with things advancing really slowly. It feels like we have not known each other for so long, so there is a lot of the initial "bliss" which I really enjoy. I did have a crush for three years, and it was really enjoyable, but it's still enjoyable even three years after that.

OTOH, it's possible that if we would become more typical in our contact that it would still be enjoyable over time, but if that fails, there is no way to fix it. So, it's a kind of decision that cannot be made undone.

Raphael, so one of the main things you said about NTs is that they don't have parience to overanalyze complex things. But you know what? They are the ones that are giving me things to overanalyze. I mean THEY told me that I don't feel love despite the OBVIOUS thing that I spend hours thinking about something that I presumable don't need. How can I wrap my mind around this one?! (Oh just to clarify I am talking about now -- not 90s -- so in the 90s I didn't need love, in recent years I need it. Sounds simple. Why can't they believe me?) The other thing they tell me that is even harder to wrap my mind about is "you can't love unless you are happy with yourself first" I believe diametric opposite. Back in 90s I was happy with myself -- that's why I didn't need love; right now I am not happy with myself -- so I need love. Now, if NTs are telling me things that are DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSITE to how I see then, then OF COURSE I will analyze to make sense of it all. But you are telling me NTs don't analyze. Well, if they don't, then how did they manage to come up with all that counterintuitive stuff?

For reasons which (I hasten to emphasize) are not to do with you, I have had to give up on Wrong Planet, so let me apologise now for (a) not getting back to you sooner and (b) not posting any more after this. I logged in to-day only to check for a Private Message which I've just about given up waiting for. You're going to want to ask why I've suddenly had to give up. The short answer is that I noticed an alarming and unfortunate tendency for certain Wrong Planet members to be unnecessarily sarcastic towards other members who appeared to be in genuine distress and potentially vulnerable. Possibly as a Christian you will appreciate my profound aversion to this kind of practice (even if I'm a non-practising Jew myself). However, when I dared to suggest that shooting people down in flames might be cruel and harmful to their mental health, I myself was shot down in flames for suggesting such a thing! So that looks like the end of me on Wrong Planet. I don't enjoy being shot down in flames for making a sincere and humane point, and even less do I enjoy watching young people being shot down in flames for no good reason by older people who ought to know better. I ended up seriously suicidal for the first time in more than eight years, so if I were still seeing my psychotherapist, I think we can be pretty sure she'd tell me to give up and walk away! I don't need to spend money booking another session with her now to be told that...

O.K. Deep breath.

Now, back to your point. The name "Wrong Planet" was exceedingly well chosen, because in very many ways it really does seem like we and the NT population are two totally different species from two whole different planets. On a good day, Wrong Planet functions as a space where people like us can express, and attempt to resolve, our bewilderment at the NTs' total [expletive withheld] weirdness.

The mental health profession, even those bits of it which purport to specialize in A.S.D., is dominated by NTs and seldom understands what we need, nor how to communicate effectively with us. So we do indeed end up spending lots of our time trying frantically to work out what the hell they're saying and why, and they do indeed habitually fail to tell us what we actually want to know.

It is fairly clear you are experiencing some emotional distress, therefore you do have emotions and any NT who infers or implies otherwise is just plain wrong. And you are allowed to believe that an NT is wrong, even an ostensibly intelligent NT, because NTs in general don't get people with A.S.D. and that includes many intelligent NTs.

If you are experiencing a lack of love then clearly you would be capable of appreciating love. That said, there is the distinct possibility that your way of appreciating love could be unlike what an NT would expect to see in someone appreciating love, and there also remains a possibility that you might prefer to receive love not quite in the way NTs are wont to express it. Don't worry, though: happy relationships between us and NTs are possible (otherwise I'd have been single my entire life!).

For many years there was a recurrent argument between myself and my (NT) psychotherapist. It went something like this:-

"Oh, for goodness' sake, Raphael! How can you expect other people to like you if you don't like yourself?"

"But if nobody else seems to like me, then what justification do I have for liking myself? Where's any actual evidence for me being as wonderful as you say I am?"

So it sounds as though I've struggled with a conundrum not a zillion miles dissimilar to yours. Self-hatred is not attractive to most potential partners. They have some freaky, spooky way of detecting it, even if you aren't actually wearing a tee shirt that says "I AM NOT HAPPY WITH MYSELF", and even if they themselves are not actually conscious of having detected it. It seems to be a partly, or wholly, subliminal kind of thing.

Likewise, frantic desperation for a partner is, paradoxically, NOT attractive to most women, although my impression is quite a lot of men are attracted by exactly that kind of desperation in a woman (I may be wrong about this, though, and after I've gone rdos may well have something intelligent to say on it).

So you do need, maybe, to find some way of identifying and keeping in mind the positive things about yourself (of which I am certain there must be many, not least the very fact you are bravely trying to work on your social skills and interaction and so forth, rather than giving up like I just about have now); if possible you will also identify ways of expressing or manifesting those positive things, as in somehow enabling them to come across to other people (maybe your therapist could help you with that?). And my own opinion, bearing in mind my own experiences of loneliness and emotional frustration, would be that you also need to work out a way of accepting the fact you do happen currently to be single, even while admittedly you would prefer not to be (which is perfectly natural).

One does kind of need to love oneself, not to the extent of arrogance or narcissism of course. This is easier said than done! It took me many many years to even begin to get the hang of it.

I think we may be in the familiar territory of feeling like you're one half of an unmade whole, whereas you kind of need to be satisfied that you are actually a perfectly valid whole in your own right, even if you'd really quite like to hook up with another whole (of the opposite gender). Again this is easier said than done, and did not come naturally to me.

It is actually rare, in my experience and observation, for a partner to provide you with the love you're unable to provide for yourself: you can be in a relationship and still missing some of the love you were missing when you were single; it's a very unusual thing for your partner to be able to both notice and provide precisely what you need, and I believe rdos will confirm many people never experience a relationship where that actually happens. However crazy this may sound, I can assure you it is possible to be in a relationship and still feel lonely and unfulfilled: and that is most likely because one is not loving or fulfilling oneself enough.

So hopefully you can use therapy, and/or your own ratiocinating mind, to identify what it is you're not happy about with yourself, and then find ways of making yourself happier with yourself. Love is a very wonderful thing, but it isn't a cure-all. If you can get back to a state where you are a bit happier with yourself again, then you will not only be more attractive to women, you will also be in a better position to enjoy love when and if it comes your way.

I think some of this "advice" (such as it is) would have been vexingly counterintuitive to the twenty-years-ago me, so I apologise if it is to you now; it certainly wouldn't have been as simple and clear-cut as I always used to wish the answer to my problem would be. I sincerely wish you well for the future. So long as you can maintain some hope, there always is hope, and I believe any Christian minister would back me in saying that.

Anyway, what with the U.K./U.S. time difference, my new-found queue of haters will probably be coming on line by now, so I'd better skedaddle...

Yeah, but if someone is wrong about something REALLY OBVIOUS, like saying 2+2=5, doesn't it make you want to analyze WHY they are wrong in this so obvious way?

Here is a perfect illustration of what I am talking about:



I would add to it that women say that you can't love when you are desperate.

And that last thing is VERY contradictory. So how do they manage to believe something as contradictory as this, unless they spent hours trying to twist things in their head to make such an apparent contradiction somehow fit together?